We’d rather live near a taco truck, than a Taco Bell. Sure. And summer wouldn’t feel the same without the occasional Mr. Softee/Frosty Treats/ or Tactical Ice Cream Unit soft serve indulgence.

But at some point this whole thing gets a little ridiculous. First there’s all those disposable plates and utensils – though some trucks use only compostable ware, provide receptacles and recycle their frying oil into biofuel.

Then there’s the fact that street food is supposed to be affordable, simple, and accessible. But with the cool factor off the charts, people sometimes wait hours for a small portion of very expensive food that they then have to scarf down while perched precariously on a urine soaked curb. Is it that good, really?

Then there are all these trucks driving around and sometimes idling in parking places all day and spewing out noxious fumes along with the emissions caused by their refrigeration systems, stoves, fryers, and grills.

In New York, the city council just moved forward on its first anti-food truck law due to idling and parking issues.

Not to mention complaints from non-mobile restaurants.

Though some trucks are greener than others, there is a real lack of discussion overall about the environmental impact of the explosion in food trucks. This how-to article doesn’t mention it at all.

Thankfully, there are food trucks heading in the right direction. Here’s our list of 10 mobile vendors and one futuristic pop up restaurant that are curbing the use of excess resources.

1. Kickstand Coffee in Brooklyn NY uses bikes to transport its coffee and even uses bike power to fuel a portion of the brewing. If they don’t use disposable cups or plastic lids, they’d get extra points in my book, but their website doesn’t mention it. Hey Brooklynites! Are they totally green or not?

2. The Green Pirate Truck Juice Truck in Brooklyn NY runs its truck on biodiesel, composts all organic waste and works with farmers to get it to farms in upstate NY. They also use compostable cups.

3. Green Trucks in the LA area power their trucks on vegetable oil and biodiesel, make their food in a solar powered kitchen, use green packaging (though they don’t say what kind), and have a lot of organic vegetarian choices. They still serve meat of the slightly more humane variety, though it’s not grass-fed from family farms and “sustainably farmed” shrimp. To me these look like compromises to stay in business and keep their price points reasonable, which is understandable.

4. Liba’s Falafel Truck in San Francisco and Emeryville, CA serves a totally organic, vegetarian (mostly vegan) menu, recycles its frying oil into fuel, and uses all compostable packaging while providing the necessary receptacles to customers.

5. On the Fly in DC vends organic, local foods from their specially designed, American made zero-emission plug-in”smartkarts®“. They also use eco-friendly packaging, though they don’t say what kind.

6. Austin’s Soup Peddler has been around since before the current mobile food trend grew wheels. Soup Peddler started out delivering soups by bike in his Austin neighborhood. The business has grown to include entrees, and other foods and, while some deliveries are still done by bike, customers have the option to pick up as well. Hopefully at least some of them are on two wheels.

7. Steubens Food Truck in Denver is still in development but founders say its solar-powered, biofueled, locally grown goodness is coming soon!

8. DC’s Sweetflow Yogurt is a truck designed to run without a generator so it uses less fuel. They also use local and organic ingredients and 100 percent compostable packaging.

9. Fresh Local in New Hampshire is run by actual farmers. The products are all sourced from local family farms, the disposables are biodegradable and they feed any kitchen scraps they don’t compost to their very own chickens.

10.  Clover Food Lab runs trucks in Boston and at MIT. Founders are nuts about compost and are working toward a zero waste operation. The trucks are run on biodiesel, and the food is local and organic. Their blog, which documents the process of getting the business up and running, provides a fascinating window into what it takes to start a green food truck.

The whole scene in Portland is greener from an emissions point of view because many of the carts are stationary and in pods concentrated in downtown areas easily accessible by bikers and walkers.

And here’s the future of the pop-up restaurant – somewhere between a stand-alone business and a restaurant on wheels, the solar powered, foldable, moveable Muv Box may be the biggest future trend yet.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: ricardodiaz11

The post What Starts with F, Ends with Uck? Our Love/Hate Affair with Food Trucks appeared first on EcoSalon.

With a tag line, “putting the food back in fast,” snappy graphics and smart social marketing, the Eat Real Festival, a three-day community-based extravaganza in Oakland, Calif. set up exactly the right expectations. It promised to be a fun place to go, where good food would be served for affordable prices, without a side dish of politics. And that’s exactly what it was. But it was also radical in a way.

In our celebrity-obsessed culture, you wouldn’t think that an event focused on eating humble foods, without celebrity restaurant chefs, famous bands or highly sought after speakers, held in the city about which Gertrude Stein once remarked, “there’s no there there,” would draw unexpected crowds well over 50% higher than projected. Especially if that festival was competing with Outside Lands, a huge music festival across the bay in San Francisco. But it did, with nary a famous name in sight.

The Eat Real Festival was founded as a way to connect eaters with their food (real food, not the rarified kind) and the people who make it.

It was set up as a social venture to inspire eaters to choose good food, and to benefit local organizations working to increase healthy food access in underserved communities.

Admission was free and all foods were priced between $1 and $5. The focus was on delicious and sustainable street food that everyone could have access to.

The festival organizers reached out to purveyors as varied as the traditional taco trucks in east Oakland and the new generation of trendy, sought after underground San Francisco street food vendors. All these people worked together, along with the grassroots community food access organizations to make the event happen.

These are people that don’t always get a chance to talk to one another. People always say that food brings folks together, but I’ve never seen it in action quite like this.

In addition to food there were local entertainers, local (non-celebrity) chef demos, a canning contest, a butchery contest and gardening workshops.

I had a chance to catch up with Susan Coss, Marketing Communications Director for Eat Real, to ask her a few questions about the event.

Vanessa: Why did the organizers decide to do this event?

Susan: The organizers of this event were some of the same people that organized last year’s Slow Food Nation. Despite best efforts to talk about accessibility around that event, there was much criticism that organic, sustainable food is elitist. Everyone does have a right to great, locally-produced food, but there is an affordability challenge. So we thought, what could be more simple than a taco truck and beer festival? Why not showcase this satisfying, affordable, humble and healthy “fast food” as a great alternative for people on the go? And while we’re at it, why not work toward connecting these food purveyors with local, sustainable producers?  We wanted good food without pretense. We wanted to apply slow food principals to a fast food mentality.

Why did you choose Oakland as the venue?

Oakland already has a vibrant street food culture and an active pushcart alliance, especially in the Fruitvale district. There’s also so much going on here in the urban agriculture movement. And Oakland’s economic and ethnic diversity makes it a mass market in a way that San Francisco is not. Also, Oakland was once the largest produce district port on the West Coast, and the produce district is only one block away. Locating the event here in Oakland’s historic Jack London Square was a great way to connect with that history.

Speaking of produce, how did you work with vendors on sourcing local, sustainable organic supplies without making the barriers to entry too high?

We wanted vendors to serve the same great food they always do, but connect them with local farmers and producers. We worked with the vendors to ensure that they were sourcing at least one or two ingredients from local, organic or sustainable producers. One interesting thing we found was that many of them were already using local produce. One of the biggest successes we had was connecting vendors with local ranchers to help them source responsibly-raised meat.

It’s clear that the eaters benefited. But what was in it for the vendors who participated?

It gave them an opportunity to be introduced to a larger audience. It also made them feel like part of a community. They connected with one another in ways they wouldn’t have otherwise. They feel like part of a legitimate community now. Showcasing these local vendors increases their business opportunities and keeps money and jobs in the community. The event was a great way to highlight the importance of our interdependence and have a great time.

For people hoping to replicate such an event in their communities, what were the biggest challenges in pulling it off?

Money. It’s not as simple as the trucks pulling up and opening their windows. There’s a huge infrastructure that has to be put in place. Things like health permits, fire marshal requirements, parking, space rental, electricity, water and marketing. It’s really about relationship building and working together with the city, the sponsors and the nonprofit organizations.

What was the most inspiring thing about the event?

There were so many: the number of people who entered the canning competition (we had around 100 entries and we thought we’d get around 30); the thousands of people who watched a butchery contest on Saturday night; the diversity of the crowd; and the fact that everyone donated their time. Not one musician, chef or entertainer was paid.

What was the most surprising thing about the event?

The attendance! We thought we’d get around 25,000 people but were hoping for 30,000. We actually got something like 70,000, throughout the weekend. The amazing thing is that, for the most part, the vendors didn’t run out of food. They just prepped more on Saturday night and early Sunday morning. This was after working from 10am-9pm serving food to thousands of hungry people. It took a huge effort by so many people to pull this off. It was such a success that we’re going to make it an annual event.

To learn more about the culture of street food and efforts to preserve street food culture worldwide, go to streetfood.org.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

The post Eat Real Festival: Building Community 1 Street Food Cart at a Time appeared first on EcoSalon.